Terrorized Mexicans awoke to yet another scene of mass carnage last weekend when 49 mutilated bodies were found dumped on a highway 75 miles south of the Texas border. There were no signs of bullet wounds, indicating that death was neither swift nor painless. The bodies were decapitated and hands removed, suggesting the killers went to great lengths to prepare this horror scene.

Authorities blamed the killings on drug cartel turf battles, but the location, on a popular highway for migrant smuggling, casts doubt on the official explanation. Either way, these and 50,000 other violent deaths since 2006 have convinced Mexicans that their government is not in control despite a nearly six-year effort by President Felipe Calderón to dismantle drug gangs using troops and federal police.

Mexicans are so discouraged that they’re increasingly receptive to seeking outside help — U.S. help — to get control of the problem. According to a poll this month co-sponsored by The Dallas Morning News, 52 percent of Mexican respondents favor an expanded U.S. role in fighting the cartels, with 28 percent supporting the deployment of U.S. troops and drug agents on Mexican soil.

That’s a telling measure of Mexicans’ sense of desperation, given their fierce nationalism when it comes to relations with the U.S.

A strong majority, 64 percent, favors Calderón’s militarization of the anti-cartel war. Yet polls ahead of the July 1 presidential election indicate Mexicans don’t want Calderón’s conservative National Action Party to remain in the presidency. The left-leaning Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, is way ahead in polls.

Mexicans seem to be flailing for solutions. They know what they want — an end to drug cartel violence — but they don’t know how to achieve it.

At least Calderón has been consistent in his get-tough, anti-accommodation policy toward the cartels. The PRI leadership, including presidential candidate Enrique Peña Nieto, has heavily criticized Calderón’s approach. But now Peña Nieto supports it and even favors increased U.S. cooperation.

Another indicator of Mexican confusion is an apparent willingness by voters to forget the PRI’s uninterrupted rule for 71 years before Calderón’s party won election in 2000. Corruption flourished under the PRI. Government coffers were pillaged. Ragtag, small-time drug-running families became behemoth multinational crime syndicates.

PRI rule obstructed Mexico’s democratic development, stunted its economic growth and established the drug cartels’ foothold at America’s doorstep. Now Mexican voters are poised to put the PRI wolves back in control of the henhouse.

Perhaps Peña Nieto is a true reformer. Perhaps his party has changed. But amid the current atmosphere of confusion, Washington’s best approach is to exercise extreme caution. Maintain the fight against drug and arms traffickers on this side of the border, remain supportive, but treat calls for deeper involvement on the other side with a heavy dose of skepticism.

What Mexicans say

Regarding drug wars

• 64 percent approve of the Mexican military leading the fight against organized crime.

• 21 percent say the strategy is working.

• 21 percent say the government should reach an agreement with criminal groups to reduce violence.

• 80 percent oppose allowing citizens to bear arms.

• 52 percent favor the death penalty for criminals convicted of violent crimes. (Mexico has no death penalty.)